Entangled Dynamics in Macroscopic Quantum Tunneling of Bose-Einstein Condensates

Tunneling of a quasibound state is a non-smooth process in the entangled many-body case. Using time-evolving block decimation, we show that repulsive (attractive) interactions speed up (slow down) tunneling, which occurs in bursts. While the escape time scales exponentially with small interactions, the maximization time of the von Neumann entanglement entropy between the remaining quasibound and escaped atoms scales quadratically. Stronger interactions require higher order corrections. Entanglement entropy is maximized when about half the atoms have escaped.